Flaming fast - the work of an aviation fire fighter

Having your plane catch on fire while heading down the runway is something that hopefully will never happen to you, but if it did you can rest assured that specialist fire fighters at the airport have to have 90 per cent of it extinguished within three minutes!

Of course, given the rarity of planes on fire in Australia, aviation rescue and fire fighting units do much more than just wait for disasters.

They are highly trained in dealing with many situations, whether it's being on site if a plane's brakes have overheated, or delivering first aid to a passenger.

Scott Sparkman is an aviation fire-fighter at Canberra airport and often these situations are just as high pressure as fires.

"One case that we had was a heart attack on the steps of a plane just as it was about to take off, Scott told 666 Sunday's.

"He basically dropped at aisle number one and we had to perform CPR on that gentleman with a capacity crowd watching on, and that was a very high pressure situation but fortunately for the gentleman he was resuscitated and he lived to tell the tale."

Scott says its days like these that you know you have made a difference.

"You can sit back and say I accomplished something today."

Scott says the time pressure is the same whether they are dealing with a fire or a health emergency.

"We have to be on site anywhere on the airport environment within two minutes...and hence the urgency when we get a call, it's not walk slowly its walk very quickly and get to the job as soon as you can."